It's meaning is "beyond category". For UCI events, climbs as categorized (in increasing severity), 4,3,2,1 and "hors categorie".
I think that Big Bear this year at the Amgen Tour of California was "hors categorie", there were certainly not many guys left when they got to the top!
Jim Allen Motorcycle referee, 2010 Tour of California the CycleSmiths Ranchita, CA 92066
Timothy McGovern wrote:
> Hello folk,
>
> I'm writing with a historical-terminological query about the phrase,
> "Hors catégorie." Wikipedia tells me a few things: it was first used
> (formally, as a classification for the KOM jersey) in the Tour de
> France in 1979, but also that it was "originally used for those
> mountain roads where cars were not expected to be able to pass." That
> "originally" seems fairly vague to me, and the idea that there were
> mountain stages in 1979 still impassable to cars surprising (to say
> the least).
>
> However, in 1979 (and still today--at least in the U.S.) if you say
> the phrase "hors catégorie" to a jazz fan, the immediate referent will
> be Duke Ellington. What I'm wondering is whether Jacques Goddet or
> Félix Lévitan was an Ellington fan. Or whether "hors catégorie" was
> idiomatic French before Ellington picked it up and continued in common
> usage as a tag for, well, beyond category while he was plastered with
> it.
>
> Yours in linguistic curiosity,
> Tim McGovern
> Chicago, Illinois, USA